


Utican

by amb-roses (overtture)



Category: Professional Wrestling, Ring of Honor, 新日本プロレス | New Japan Pro-Wrestling
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Identity Issues, Introspection, Light Angst, No Dialogue, Not Beta Read, Pre AEW, Sort Of, ask to tag, nobody comes out of wrestling fame the same way they go in, or: adam loves his friends but is really to fuckin snap sometimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-03-30 20:35:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19035148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overtture/pseuds/amb-roses
Summary: Adam knows a lot and nothing at all, at the same time. There are two things he's certain of, though.He only knows his friends under the light. He only knows himself in the dark. It's a frightening sort of thing, one that makes him doubt and wonder. Doubt and wonder if this really will be forever for him, on one end of the spectrum, the other so far out of reach he can't even imagine.(Or, nobody comes out the same they go in, whether that be championship spotlight or wrestling itself.)





	Utican

**Author's Note:**

> so uh. not entirely sure what this is! i woke up in the middle of the night having Feelings about hangman, as one does, and while i did mean for my first attempt at writing him to be more of an actual Fic, i figured there's enough here to try and shape into something postable on ao3 instead of another ranty character post on tumblr. anyway woo, impulse post!  
> (the title reference is the song Utican by Novo Amor)
> 
> as usual, will probably come back and edit this, but enjoy none the less

He only knows his friends, truly, under the light. He only knows himself, who he is now and has always been, in the dark.

It's a frightening sort of thing, one that makes him forever doubt and wonder. Doubt and wonder if this really will be forever for him, on one end of the spectrum. Like he’s trapped on one end while his friends are all basking in the light of the other. He wonders if maybe he just got stuck on the backswing, a painful twist of destiny and fate.

He wonders if maybe this was how it was always meant to be. He wonders if he really believes fate is that rigid, if he is the only one holding himself back. He wonders if he even wants to partake in the spotlight, in the title pictures. It seems to change who people are.

He knows himself to be a genuine person. Or, at least, he tries hard to be. He cares, a lot. He’s loyal, trustworthy, responsible. He knows himself, but he sees Kenny Omega in the ring, and he has no idea who _he_ is.

He _knows_ him, Kenny Omega the lover, the fighter, the winged wrestler. He knows this much. He knows Kenny Omega with a belt around his waist. He knows the shadows he casts behind him under the light, knows the planes of the man’s shoulders under hardlight, the subtle shadowing of his back when his shoulders roll, the curve of his arms as his muscles coil and flex with controlled power. He knows the weight under his eyes, knows the way golds, silvers, bronzes all glitter off lights, how they shine and illuminate him in an air of power, dominance, control. Of _superiority._

He sees only the afterimage of who the man used to be in old, years old matches, young and sharp, not quite as spotlighted under the eyes of the world. That phantom is all he truly knows of the man. Kenny Omega of years past, true and real, is not the man that stands in the ring’s light now. He knows the man in the ring, however fake his is, but doesn’t _know_ him. He wonders if he has the right.

He knows the bend of Cody’s joints, the cut of Marty’s expressions, the duality of the Buck’s synchronicity and their additional opposing postures, the planes of Kenny’s shoulders.

He’s intimate in the way light blesses their features, casts hard and soft shadow, the way it straightens their spines, squares their shoulders, broadens their smiles, illuminates them in all their glory for the media, the people, for history to capture. But as bright as it is, he can’t see into their eyes. For as blinding as the light is, their eyes are darker, still.

Adam doesn’t know himself in the light.

He knows the feeling of accompanying leaders, the light-walkers, himself a step to the left and two back, the way that perspective of light only catches enough of his face to register to others that he is there physically, but not who he is, not that he’s actually _there._ He knew this in the Decade, bided his time, waited patiently, worked and built from the ground up in their image before it was all for nothing and he washed up on the Bullet Club’s foreign shores, into a new set of shades.

He knows the way their shadows cut across his own features like muscle memory, comfortable with the slightest itch that drags up his spine like nails. He knows the way the darkness of the crowd creeps up onto the apron, plays at his feet and features as he waits patiently at the turnbuckle for a tag. He knows the way the lights of his own entrance flash out behind him, silhouette him in that yellow-green-gold chartreuse, the way he steps down the dark of the crowd-lined ramp and towards the lights of the ring, waiting for him.

He knows the way the dark sings so sweetly to him, the way it’s siren call croons its sympathies, twists charming roses around him, pricking at him with poisoned thorns that spark anger and resentment in that deeper, bleaker, truer part of him he forces down and away.

He knows the way Kenny and Matt nurse their irritated injuries in the ring. He knows the way Marty holds himself when he shows no fear but aches with pains he refuses to show. He knows the way Cody grits his teeth, the tensing of his jaw, the pain-fire-pain that dances in his expression and posture. He knows the way Nick cradles an injured side, the way he masks a limp.

He knows how to disassemble all of them. He knows how to win. He knows a lot of things. The dark whispers to him such things, after all. The dark holds him close, embraces him like an old lover. Perhaps it is. All he does is chase after shadows these days, chase theirs, his own, the shadows and after images of people, wrestlers, long past. Maybe it’s less of a sentient dark, that supernatural side, and more of he, himself. Maybe that was who he was: that muddied mix of hunger, aggression, resentment, a sort of berserk-heavy fury that burns low in his gut, burning him out as he struggles to rein it all in.

Maybe he was a snake, a scorpion, hidden in the grass, charming frogs against his true nature before falling prey to it whether he means to or not. Maybe one day, his thoughts would become action. Maybe one day, phantom impulse would become muscle memory. Maybe one day, he would become his nature.

Would he perish under the shades of his friends? Would they even notice, backs always turned towards him? Would anyone remember him, who he was, who he never became? If he stepped into the light, would he burn away into ash? Or would that weight on his shoulders, that light in his eyes, finally on him, ghost him into someone new? An after-image of who he was now, who he used to be? Would he become just as hollowed out as Omega?

It feels safe, here, in the dark. Even as every instinct, every desire, everything within him, everything he _is_ screams to be _more_ , another part of him, that shy boy from Aaron’s Creek that still lives, protected, safe, within him, wonders how dangerous that would be. Isn’t it better to be cautious? Safe, risk free? Somewhere nobody can truly hurt him, change him in any way he doesn’t want? Where everything’s under his control?

Even at the cost of all his friends disagreeing and leaving him behind in their search for glory, chasing their dreams, their fates, their thrills and desires and passions? Because wouldn’t it be worth fighting that own call within himself, if it meant safety? Even against that itch that burns in his hands, his shoulders, his waist, itching for a weight that isn’t there, the feeling of cool metal texture under his fingers, the phantom feeling just out of reach?

His large hands, light shoulders, bare waist, all feel empty. Maybe that’s who he is in the light, the same way his friends are, however subtly. Laden heavy. Himself, his own after-image, a mockery of his true being, but bearing the world like a fucked up Atlas. With gold, with fame, with stress, with injustice, with weapon and violence and irreparable damage and blooded hands he can’t wash clean. Or maybe with crows feet in his eyes and laugh lines etched deep, with a world-weary fondness, with joy so large it doesn’t seem possible, with satisfaction and a soul deep feeling of peace, of finally being okay with settling and stilling.

Maybe.

Maybe… maybes and guesses, wondering, it’s all he has. But there are also harder truths to swallow, he knows too. That nothing will truly ever be his own, not with the Elite always at his front, always a step ahead, always a roadblock he’s yet to find a way around, drowning him, choking him in their shadows, shades, reputations, the path they've walked ahead of him, leaving him to follow like an afterthought when they move on.

But maybe he’ll succumb to the nature that sings in his blood and crows in his ears, calls for war and brings forth a gluttonous lust within him. Maybe he’ll burn to life in those shadows he feels so trapped in, burn and blaze and shine with the life he’s built from the ground up with his own calloused hands and become bigger, brighter, better than he is now. Maybe he’ll thrive.

All he truly knows is that he doesn’t know.


End file.
